Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)

Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)
Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)

Friday, June 27, 2008

2018

Apart from eating three course meals in tablet form and flying around with your solar powered jet pack, what would you like to be doing ten years from now?

I would like to be living in a small town, maybe somewhere down the South Coast. We would have another three kids, and (not so) little e would be 11 years old. We would have an old house with a fireplace and floor boards, and a bit of property. Enough for a massive vege patch, a tree house, a chicken coup, a goat, and backyard cricket.

The house would have a granny flat, that I had converted into a studio. Here, I would work from home, doing freelance drawing work. I would also have all my painting stuff set up in here, and a room for a little music studio. Life would be slow, quiet, but satisfying.

What would your ideal 2018 look like?

9 comments:

Pedro said...

We can but only dream, hey brethra?...
10 years from now?... I would like to be in a reasonably sized house for my wife, me and 3 kids (lets hope we get that underway soon!) on maybe a quarter acre no more than a block from the water up on the sunshine coast Queensland. The granny flat as a Studio is a great idea but down the back of the yard, past the deck and BBq area i built and paved, just after the herb garden and dog houses would be my shaping / glassing shed. Insulated and self contained. I too would work from home spreading my income earning between the odd drawing and a faithful reproduction of an original steve lis twin keel fish. Kel would have her own rooms for councelling in at the local community centre and i would take care of Kids duties in the afternoons where I could teach my kids all the wonders of mother ocean et al from their backyard..
I doubt I would ever have to leave the neighbourhood apart from the odd trip chasing some swell, but always, always...family in tow.
Heaven on Earth.
You just made my day brah, these thoughts have topped up my motivation for another few years.
Ta.

onlinesoph said...

My ideal:

I'm 35 years old and have three kids. My husband is the youth pastor at a small but thriving, missional (has to be missional!) church in either inner-west Sydney or out west somewhere. Our home (which we hopefully own or are paying off) is not necessarily luxurious, but warm, friendly and full of life. We are hospitable and have lots of people over from different backgrounds. Every friday after youth group, it is filled with young people. I even make a big pot of pasta to feed everyone, and it tastes lovely.

We grow our own herbs and make our own bread. We see our families often, as well as our friends. The kids are still a bit young, but in a few years time, I start to freelance a little as a journalist. I am also working on my first book. Naturally, it will be a best seller.

Anonymous said...

I'm hoping Jesus will return before then...

Ali said...

Oh, can I just steal yours, with a little of pedros? I would like to be living in the country - don't even need the small town - somewhere that I can see hills. The south coast has hills AND the ocean, so that would do nicely. I too would have an old house with a fireplace, with books shelves built into either side - or a window seat one side might be nice too. There would be a library, with comfy chairs and a spiral staircase leading somewhere. I'd stew fruit picked from the trees out back in the homely kitchen, where you could sit on the bench and swing your legs and chat. Somewhere there's a piano to sing around, and outside somewhere there's a bonfire spot and you can see all the stars. I like the studio idea too. I don't know that anything all that productive would happen out there but it'd be nice to have one, and perhaps I'd do some freelance editing perhaps and dabble in drawing and painting and photography - yes! my own dark room would be cool ...

But mostly I would like to be doing all of that WITH someone ... Time's almost up for the large family I was always going to have, but it remains the biggest dream (and thus will probably be the biggest grief).

Ali said...

I can never make those italics tags work - that's why I start YELLING! Does anyone know how to italicise comments? It looks so simple but I can't do it!

Ben McLaughlin said...

Thanks for your thoughts, guys. I am sorry if it brought up sad stuff, i didn't intend it to. I don't want to give some trite little reply to such big stuff, but I will say that I will pray, and that we can know God has good things planned for his people.

One common thread I noticed is people want to go freelance and not work around other people! That's funny I thought I was the only one:) Also a fondness for homely thins and herb gardens. Good stuff.

Ali said...

Hey, I didn't mean to be overly morose ... it would seem that everyone would like to have children, me included, only in my case it seems a lot less likely - but this story gives me hope http://www.smh.com.au/news/parenting/triplets-shock-for-grandmother/2008/06/24/1214073226990.html :)

Bonnie said...

Do you want to buy my mum's house? It's scarily exactly what you describe: South Coast location (in a village, not a town, but near a large town), 100+ years old with floorboards and fireplaces in almost every room, vege patch, room for chickens (we used to have bantams when we were little) and backyard cricket was great when we played with my Grandpa. Except I don't think you could fit the studio AND the goat on the block. It would have to be one or the other.

I would be in Europe, hopefully in London, Berlin or Amsterdam. Michael would have a good freelance opera career and be paid so much for each gig that he'd be able to spend the majority of the year at home with me and our 3 kids, maybe teaching the odd masterclass. I'd have a great design business, creating textiles, stationery and ceramics, all in my studio, attached to the house. We'd have a yard big enough to grow lots of roses and other flowers as well as veges and coffee trees, with a patio that has a wood-fired oven for M to bake his sourdough bread and home-made pizza bases in.

We would have a dachshund or two and a budgie.

We would have a house in the country as well, for weekends and long summer holidays. Maybe on one of the Italian lakes, or in Bavaria, that we would fill with family and friends. We'd swim, eat and garden all summer long, take the kids on walks and just live.

Ben McLaughlin said...

Hi Bonnie! Wow, your mum's place sounds awesome. I am jelous. Do I really have to choose? Maybe the goat could hang out in the studio with me.

Your dream sounds pretty cool. I hope that you can acheive lots of that stuff, it sounds great. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope things are going well for you guys at yr new church.